AN angry mum whose baby almost died was shocked to read in the Shuttle/Times & News of parents suffering similar heartache - four years after she was told it would never happen again.

Naomi Clarke, of Warwick Street in Stourport, suffered the agony of almost losing her child because her condition was not diagnosed.

"I was lucky because my baby, Ben, survived," said the 32-year-old. "These babies have died. When I read the stories, it seemed to be exactly the same thing happening again. There's a big problem here."

Miss Clarke said she was due to give birth at the start of 2001 but three months before, in October, 2000, she showed symptoms of distress, with obstetric choleostasis, and complained to the midwife. Nothing was done until she went to her GP, who immediately sent her to be monitored at Kidderminster and she was then taken to the old Ronkswood hospital in Worcester.

"The GP saved my life," explained Miss Clarke, who was 28 at the time and lived in Cleobury Mortimer.

"On January 1, 2001, I had an emergency caesarean and needed a major blood transfusion. I was in such a state, I didn't know what was happening for the first day after my baby was born.

"It's difficult for new mothers-to-be because they don't have the experience to ask questions."

She pursued the complaints procedure with Worcestershire NHS Hospital Trust and, following a series of letters, she said she went before a midwifery committee, 10 months later, in October, 2001.

"They finally apologised and admitted they had got it wrong," said the former post office clerk, who decided she did not want any disciplinary action taken. "They said the service had been sub-standard and they would improve the training. They promised me it would never happen to anyone else."

She added that, at five ft two ins tall and with a heavy baby, who was born at 8lbs 3oz, she should have been seen as at risk.

She has since given birth to a daughter without any complications and hoped the extra midwife training had made a difference. Now she said she feared standards had slipped again after reading of the tragic cases of Kidderminster mums, Kelly Hart and Stella Perkins.

The experience led Miss Clarke to pursue an Open University course in health and she is hoping to become an alternative practitioner.

"My son, Ben, is now a healthy four-year-old but I almost lost him," she said. "I went through with all this because I didn't want it to happen to anyone else. Now it looks like I didn't win at all because at least two babies have died."